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If a few authors have an golden era, in which they hit the summit time after time, then U.S. novelist John Irving’s ran through a sequence of several substantial, gratifying novels, from his late-seventies hit His Garp Novel to 1989’s Owen Meany. Those were generous, funny, big-hearted novels, linking protagonists he calls “outsiders” to social issues from gender equality to termination.

After Owen Meany, it’s been waning returns, aside from in size. His most recent work, the 2022 release His Last Chairlift Novel, was nine hundred pages in length of subjects Irving had examined more skillfully in prior books (mutism, restricted growth, trans issues), with a two-hundred-page film script in the heart to extend it – as if filler were required.

Therefore we look at a new Irving with caution but still a faint spark of optimism, which glows stronger when we learn that Queen Esther – a mere four hundred thirty-two pages in length – “revisits the universe of His Cider House Rules”. That 1985 novel is part of Irving’s finest works, taking place largely in an institution in the town of St Cloud’s, operated by Dr Wilbur Larch and his apprentice Homer Wells.

Queen Esther is a disappointment from a novelist who previously gave such delight

In His Cider House Novel, Irving wrote about abortion and identity with colour, wit and an total compassion. And it was a major novel because it moved past the subjects that were becoming repetitive habits in his works: wrestling, ursine creatures, Vienna, prostitution.

This book opens in the fictional town of the Penacook area in the early 20th century, where the Winslow couple welcome young foundling Esther from St Cloud's home. We are a few years prior to the events of His Earlier Novel, yet Dr Larch is still familiar: even then dependent on ether, adored by his nurses, opening every talk with “In this place...” But his appearance in this novel is limited to these early sections.

The family worry about parenting Esther properly: she’s of Jewish faith, and “how could they help a teenage Jewish girl understand her place?” To tackle that, we flash forward to Esther’s grown-up years in the Roaring Twenties. She will be involved of the Jewish migration to the area, where she will become part of Haganah, the pro-Zionist paramilitary organisation whose “purpose was to defend Jewish towns from hostile actions” and which would later form the foundation of the IDF.

Such are massive themes to tackle, but having presented them, Irving backs away. Because if it’s regrettable that the novel is hardly about St Cloud's and Wilbur Larch, it’s still more upsetting that it’s likewise not really concerning the titular figure. For causes that must connect to narrative construction, Esther turns into a surrogate mother for one more of the family's offspring, and delivers to a baby boy, Jimmy, in World War II era – and the bulk of this novel is Jimmy’s narrative.

And now is where Irving’s preoccupations reappear loudly, both common and distinct. Jimmy goes to – where else? – Vienna; there’s discussion of dodging the Vietnam draft through self-mutilation (Owen Meany); a pet with a meaningful name (the animal, meet the canine from The Hotel New Hampshire); as well as the sport, sex workers, writers and penises (Irving’s throughout).

He is a less interesting persona than the female lead promised to be, and the minor characters, such as young people Claude and Jolanda, and Jimmy’s instructor Annelies Eissler, are underdeveloped too. There are several amusing set pieces – Jimmy losing his virginity; a brawl where a couple of thugs get battered with a crutch and a tire pump – but they’re short-lived.

Irving has not ever been a nuanced writer, but that is not the issue. He has always repeated his ideas, telegraphed plot developments and allowed them to gather in the viewer's mind before taking them to fruition in long, jarring, funny scenes. For instance, in Irving’s books, physical elements tend to disappear: remember the speech organ in Garp, the hand part in Owen Meany. Those missing pieces reverberate through the narrative. In the book, a key person suffers the loss of an limb – but we only find out 30 pages later the finish.

Esther returns toward the end in the book, but merely with a final sense of concluding. We never discover the entire story of her experiences in Palestine and Israel. This novel is a failure from a novelist who once gave such delight. That’s the negative aspect. The positive note is that Cider House – revisiting it in parallel to this novel – still holds up beautifully, after forty years. So choose it in its place: it’s much longer as Queen Esther, but 12 times as enjoyable.